Drivers Snowed-In All Night as Crews Work to Reopen I-95 Near DC

(Bloomberg) -- A pileup of tractor trailers in Virginia shut down Interstate 95, the U.S. East Coast's major north-south artery, during a snowstorm, stranding hundreds of motorists overnight in freezing temperatures and disrupting private and commercial traffic.

The Virginia Department of Transportation said its crews were still working Tuesday morning to unblock the highway south of the U.S. capital, but it remained unclear when traffic could resume. After several hours, the agency is now trying to move cars off the highway via interchanges and asking anyone experiencing a medical emergency stuck in the chain of cars to call 911.

Between 7 and 11 inches (18 to 28 centimeters) of snow accumulated in the area during Monday's blizzard, and the National Weather Service is warning of more ice for Tuesday, punctuating the end of a difficult holiday travel season that saw supply chains disrupted and flights canceled due to weather and Covid-19-related absences.

A dearth of snowplow drivers is endemic of the larger worker shortage nationally across industries from the service sector to truck drivers due to Covid and the number of people unable to work due to illness or who have just decided to retire, said Tim Kraft, a supply chain management professor with North Carolina State University.

“That can cause supply chain disruptions. Now you've got a major corridor with no trucks moving through it,” Kraft said in a phone interview. “I think it's definitely just becoming part of our reality.”

Four states were blanketed with snowfall of more than a foot (30.5 centimeters). Maryland saw its highest snowfall total in Huntingtown at 15.5 inches. Delaware had 14.5 inches in Ellendale. New Jersey's top accumulation was 14 inches fall in Ocean City and Virginia saw 14.6 inches in Glendie, according to the National Weather Service.

The storm reached a wide swath of the East Coast. In the Southeast, it left snow as deep as 11.5 inches in Swiss, North Carolina, and 9 inches in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. There were lesser totals up north in Nantucket, Massachusetts, which saw about 2.2 inches, and further south, where North Corinth, Mississippi, was dusted with 1.8 inches.

More than 275,000 homes and businesses in Virginia were without power Tuesday morning, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages from local utilities. North Carolina and Maryland each had at least 25,000 customers in the dark.

Planes, Trains, Automobiles

Some 21% of flights at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport were grounded Tuesday morning, according to FlightAware.com. At Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, 18% of flights were scrubbed. About 1,200 flights were dropped nationwide, continuing a string of cancellations that began before the Christmas holiday, many of them as coronavirus infections caused staffing shortages.

Service on Amtrak's Northeast corridor was disrupted, with numerous trains canceled, delayed or halted overnight. At least one was listed as running more than 19 hours behind schedule.

Scott Silverman, a 53-year-old Boyds, Maryland, resident spent 11 hours at a complete standstill on I-95 after getting stuck in the logjam Monday south of Stafford, Virginia.

‘Like Siberia'

“It's like being in Siberia,” said Silverman, who was driving home with his 17-year-old son, Parker.

They spent the night with their minivan in park, listening to the radio, playing on their mobile phones and taking turns sleeping. Unable to get any food, they ate Doritos and Oreos. At shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday they began to move around 4 miles per hour, Silverman said.

“I'm trying to understand how it is that the major interstate artery for the East Coast of the United States looks like it was never plowed at all,” Silverman said in a phone interview. “It's covered with ice. It doesn't look like it was treated. I don't know what they were doing yesterday, but clearly they weren't treating the roads.”

The Virginia State Police had responded to over 1,000 crashes and assisted 1,000 more motorists since early Monday morning, said Alena Yarmosky, a spokeswoman for Virginia Governor Ralph Northam.

“While sunlight is helping VDOT treat and clear roads, all Virginians must continue to avoid the interstate and follow directions of emergency personnel,” Yarmosky said in an email.

An emergency message is going to all stranded drivers connecting them to support, and the state is working with localities to open a warming shelter for passengers, as needed, Yarmosky said.

“We know many travelers have been stuck on Interstate 95 in our region for extraordinary periods of time over the past 24 hours, in some cases since Monday morning,” Marcie Parker, the Virginia Department of Transportation's Fredericksburg District engineer told the Associated Press. “This is unprecedented, and we continue to steadily move stopped trucks to make progress toward restoring lanes.”

Senator's 19-Hour Trip

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine tweeted that he had still not reached the U.S. Capitol 19 hours after he began his normally two-hour journey there Monday, adding that his office was in touch with the state's transportation officials.

“Please stay safe everyone,” he said.

NBC Correspondent Josh Lederman tweeted he was stuck on the I-95 for more than 11 hours with little word from officials. He later tweeted that traffic was finally moving toward Washington, but the southbound lanes of the interstate were still blocked for miles.

Read full story on Monday's snow storms

Images taken from news helicopters aired on NBC showed emergency personnel walking across the median to bring blankets and supplies to stranded motorists once dawn broke.

While the eastern snow storm also affected parts of New Jersey, other kinds of extreme weather are hitting elsewhere too.

“Heavy coastal rain and widespread mountain snow will continue for the Northwest U.S. much of this week,” the National Weather Service said. “High winds and fire weather will impact the central and southern High Plains Tuesday.”